 Good morning everybody. Welcome on this beautiful Friday morning to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and today's full success panel discussion, creating inclusivity in the American theater. My name is Lydia Garcia, it is my pleasure to be your moderator this morning and it is my great honor to welcome to the stage our panel of distinguished guests. Today I am joined by Carmen Morgan, Project Director of Leadership Development and Inter-Ethnic Relations. Next to her, I really need to know introduction, David Henry Huang, Tony Award-winning playwright and social activist. Next to David, Sarah Bellamy, co-artistic director of Numbra Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota and of course, Bill Rouse, artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. So we have an action-capped 90-minute plan for you today. And in those 90 minutes, we have the impossible task of capturing a piece of hearing our esteemed panelists speak as well as engage with you, our audience, in conversation about how we can create and foster inclusivity in the American theater. So for the first 60 minutes or so, we will focus on official style conversation among our panelists about their work in the areas of diversity and inclusion. And during that first hour, if you have questions, if you have observations that you would like to share, we encourage you to fill out a common card that hopefully you pick up in the lobby on your way in and to go ahead and submit those to us. You can just pass them to the aisle nearest you and somebody will pick them up and collect them. So at the end of that hour, we will open up the floor in the conversation to include you, to include the submitted questions, comments, as well as live comments in the moment. So we recognize that 90 minutes is hardly enough time to examine the many issues surrounding diversity and inclusion. So don't worry, this is just the beginning of the conversation. And we encourage you all, we invite you to join us in the Culture Fest Lounge, which is right next door to the theater in new place to continue the conversation. So just by way of giving you a little context of why we're gathered here today, one of OSF's guiding documents is our value statement, which is a testament to the seven principles that form the pillars of our work at OSF. Principles that are at the heart of everything that we do and that describe the way that we commit to working together. Those values include excellence, learning, financial health, heritage, environmental responsibility, and company. However, the pillar around which we gather this morning is our collective commitment to inclusion, which states, we believe the inclusion of a diversity of people, ideas, and cultures enriches both our insights into the work we present on our stage and our relationships with each other. So the drive to become a diverse and inclusive organization here at OSF shapes every facet of our work from the place that we present on our stages every year, the artists who perform in them and who help to shape the vision of them, staff recruitment and hiring, increasing access for people with disabilities, and audience development. So it reaches into every level of our lives here. So for our panelists, you know, with that in mind, I am going to ask the impossible, which is in about a minute or so, can each of you define for yourselves diversity and inclusion? What diversity and inclusion look like from where you sit? Anybody want to go first? Excellent. I'll jump. Because then if I go, then I'm done. There you go. So in a minute. Well, I think for me, and this is personal and may also extend to a number of theater companies in certain kinds of ways as well, I think diversity is really about authenticity and about recognizing that exactly who each one of us are is our contribution and our gift to a community. And often when people are doing diversity work, I think they think, I'm going to go reach out to an other or the other. But the work really has to start with self. And so I think that would be a piece of it. And the other piece for me, diversity and inclusion is important. Yes, but I really am pushing and striving toward equity and that being a really important piece. And that's something I've learned a tremendous amount from Carmen about. She's been just an inspiring leader and teacher in that way. So that's my short answer. Yeah. I will pile on in terms of the Carmen credit. But I think Carmen maybe first started pointing this for us. The diversity is just a fact. Diversity already exists. We live in a diverse society. We live in a diverse country. Inclusion is what we're going to do about that fact. And are we going to create a place in which the fact of diversity is celebrated and people feel welcome. You know, I was lucky that the first person who ever produced my plays was the wonderful Joseph Papp, who founded the New York Shakespeare Festival and Shakespeare in the park and in the public theater. And, you know, Joe back in the 60s, I think, was talking about creating a theater of which looked like New York. And I still think that that's a pretty good guiding principle. That it's about creating art, which reflects the population that it serves. Okay, you know, I just have to do this sort of self disclosure thing. When we said that we were going to do this in the Thomas Theater, I don't know why I envisioned that I would be sitting in the audience, you know, and we'd be having a cross conversation. This whole stage thing has me totally distracted. And I'm only naming it so I can move beyond it. The lights, the stage, I thought we were going to... It was like, oh, we're just going to have a conversation in the Thomas Theater. Okay, so I just... I would add to everything that I've just heard. I mean, the diversity is just the reality. And, you know, something... I feel like I have to kind of, you know, think about this in lots of different ways and analogies. And I was having a conversation several weeks ago, actually, with some incredible educators at Ashland High School. And, you know, one of the things that came up was that, you know, their demographic at the moment is a predominantly white student population. And so when they talked about diversity, you know, they kept... There was a little bit of framing it in terms of, well, we don't really have that much. We don't have that much. And so we needed to break out of that, which is that you have what you have. And it's not just around race and ethnicity, obviously. It's around all the very complicated ways that people identify themselves and how those things intersect and more. And so one of the things I said was, so think of it that way, and then also think of it about the table that you are studying for the people that aren't even there yet. The people that you don't even know you're inviting. I think that's a piece of the inclusivity part. How can you create a culture and a climate for those folks that have not even started to knock on your door? Fabulous. Well done. So, Bill, I'm going to send the next question your way. As leader of a major arts organization, what challenges have you encountered in your work to transform an organization in the areas of diversity and inclusion? So in your work here at OSF, what opportunities have you identified? That's a big question. It is. Well, first of all, it's impossible to talk about diversity and inclusion at OSF without historical context. The Ku Klux Klan marched down Main Street of Ashland a few years before a theater was founded. There have been thoughtful efforts made about the diversity of our company and our work that go back so many decades. Henry Warnett's two artistic directors before me was extremely proactive about casting in relation to racial and ethnic diversity in particular. Libby Apple was an incredible champion of diversity and inclusion and her associate artistic director, Penny Metropolis, and the extraordinary Tim Bond did herculean work that really contributed not only to this organization's health but the field's health. The FAIR program that Sharifa runs, it's one of the most significant sources of energy on our campus and an incredible contributor to the field was Tim and Libby's legacy, part of their legacy. So I just want to share, before talking about anything else, and even in your question, right, it was about transforming, but again, we all stand on the shoulders of all those giants and everything we do is trying to build on those successes of the past and the challenges of the past. With that said, yes, rural Southern Oregon is historically a very white part of the world in terms of racial and ethnic diversity and we're asking people not only to celebrate our own neighbors' lives but also asking people to come to a destination theater, where 85% of our audience comes from a couple hundred miles away or more. And so the reality of the community that we live in is a challenge. I think that there's certainly been a lot of challenge. When I first arrived, I used to use the word change. When I arrived as an artistic director, the word change to me was just obviously, isn't that a great word? Change, change, change. Recognizing that every time I used the word change, it could be felt as a dagger in the hearts of people who'd been here a long time. That somehow change meant that what had come before was bad, was inappropriate, was invalid, was not valued. And of course that's not what I meant, but I realized I learned from listening to my colleagues that things were landing that way. So I do think the fear for anyone, when we talk about a shifting landscape, the fear for anybody who's in the dominant culture, whether that's in any part of one's identity, the fear that I'm being displaced, that I'm no longer valued, that I'm not wanted anymore, I think is very real and that's an active pain that I'm not putting that in a hierarchy with the pain of being excluded, which is an extraordinarily active pain as well. But I think that's part of what we've been struggling with at OSF. On the good days, and we have a lot of good days here, we're making a ton of progress, you know? And in a way, going back to your first question, what does diversity and inclusion look like, it's like, well, it looks like OSF at our best moments. That's what it looks like, you know? So I'll hold it there for now. Did I answer the question? Yeah. All right. Fantastic. All right, Sarah. Yes. I'm going to send the next question your way. What do you think is the role or responsibility of an art institution in achieving equity and social justice? Well, I am a person who grew up in theater. My dad is the founder of the theater company where I now work. And directed to a train running last year. To train running here. Awesome production. Yeah. Yes. And I remember very early on, as a child, watching the actors come in and, you know, they would joke with me and tease me and ask me about school. And then they would like transform into these different people. They'd go backstage and they would put on their clothes, their costumes, almost like putting on armor in a kind of a way. And their makeup was as if they were doing these rituals and their lines, you know, rehearsing their lines almost seemed like prayer in some way. And they would take the stage. And I realized the courage that they, you know, were embodying every evening to do that. And I was just in awe of them. And then to see the impact of their work in audience members who would come up to, you know, we're in Minnesota. We're the largest African American theater company in the country and we're in Minnesota. And, you know, 60% of our audiences are white folks. And so to see, for example, an older man from Duluth, white man from Duluth come up to my father trembling and grab his hands and say, that was my father I saw up there. Thank you. That kind of power is incredible. And it's something that you have to use responsibly. But it's something that I think only the arts can do. The arts require us to see and recognize the humanity in a person who might seem superficially very different from us. And so I think we have a powerful tool to use in these efforts. And I think, you know, it's a space where we can model equity, where we can really look at ourselves in relief and see some of the challenging and not so great things that we do, but create spaces where we can have empathic, compassionate, and challenging conversations about where we are and where we like to go. And ideally, a theater is a space where everybody can be all of who they are. And we don't have to compartmentalize ourselves in certain ways. I also think the arts, you know, are daring. Like, we do this for a living. That's, you know, some people would be like, are you sure? You want to do that? So why aren't we leading? Why, the arts, you know, as a sector should be on the vanguard of these efforts. We're brave, we're bold, and I believe deeply in our capacity to make change. Yeah. And, you know, I'd like to add to that if I may, because this quote I might be paraphrasing just as Mijin, but Tony K. Bambara says that it is the role of the artist to remind the activists that the revolution is possible. And I feel, from where I sit, because I love the, you know, Sarah's coming out of a tradition, a deep, rich tradition of theater, I'm coming out of a tradition of community organizing, activism, social justice work. And from that perspective, we have always seen the artist as allies. I mean, you know, activism and artists, activists and artists have always been working arm in arm. I just don't think that we can do this work and sustain this work without the creative brilliance of our artistic community. We rely on that. So the role of theater, I mean, it is one of the most transformative mediums that there is. And so from the other side, you know, the movement building side, we, yeah, we absolutely need y'all. Fantastic. Sarah, can I ask a follow-up question? Sure. Because actually, you've had a very busy week. So many artists, you know, but by way of a little background, many artists in the American theater community have been incredibly active in mounting local, regional, national responses to what's been happening in our country recently. You know, you open up a newspaper and you read about, you know, what's happening in Ferguson, Missouri, for example. So Penumbra recently hosted, like two days ago, I believe, a community conversation about Ferguson. Can you share with us a little bit about what you learned or what you might have gained from that experience? Absolutely, yeah. So at Penumbra, one of the programs that we offer is called Let's Talk. And, you know, we, and then semi-colon, whatever we want to talk about. And usually, these are planned events, right? So we do four every year. And it became evident to us that there was a need to have a conversation in our community about what had happened in Ferguson. And we weren't sure, it seemed in the Twin Cities, everybody was kind of waiting for another organization to do that. And we weren't sure what the right container for that conversation would be. And then we thought, well, it's us. I mean, why wouldn't it be us? That's what we've always done. Typically, we do plays that reflect society. And it's one of those questions, you know, chicken or egg questions. Does art reflect society or is art, you know, all of these sorts of things. You kind of lose yourself. Are we mirroring what's happening or are we in some way creating what's happening? And I think it's always both. So we decided to have the conversation. And I think it was a test for us to see how nimble we could be and how much care we could exact in creating a space where everyone would come and feel comfortable. Well, no, not feel comfortable. That's the long-world word. Feel safe. Because I think the point was to trouble the waters. The point was to disturb and air that. And so what we did is I invited three panelists to join me. I invited a theologian, an artist organizer, and the new education director at Finumbra. And we had a really deep, profound chat with, you know, an audience that was packed listening. And I always tried to make room for artists to come in and share pieces. And so I had four artists, including two teenage boys who are in our training program, black boys, share excerpted pieces. The boys had written monologues about the criminal justice system and racial profiling. And one of the artists read a beautiful piece by Claudia Alec that she wrote about her experience in Ferguson. And it was a remarkable event. I was so impressed with our community and our ability to talk to each other and be compassionate and go deep. One of the most profound realizations I had, the takeaway I had, was that Ricardo Levens Morales, the artist who was on the panel, artist organizer, we were talking about an image that a children's book writer and illustrator created in the wake of the event. I don't know if you know Mary Engelbreit's work. She's from St. Louis. And she depicted a mother, a black mother holding a child with a newspaper that said, hands up, don't shoot. And the mother was crying and the child's hands were up and the caption read, no parent should have to teach their child this in the USA. And she posted this on her personal Facebook page and people went, you know, vitriol in response to this. Facebook actually took the post down claiming it was offensive. And so I asked Ricardo, who was an illustrator as well, why it was such an explosive reaction. And he said, racism in America in some ways is like, when you acknowledge it, it's like erring abuse inside of a family. And that's why it's explosive. You told the secret. And we're not supposed to do that. And so he said, we can't talk about where we are because we're not supposed to acknowledge where we've been. And we can't talk about where we're going because that would acknowledge that it's still happening right now. And so this idea of America as an abusive family that's suffering and needs to acknowledge and then heal was profound for me and profound for the audience. And I think, you know, this idea that a children's book illustrator prompted that realization was a big takeaway for me. But it was a great conversation. I will tell you, as the person facilitating it, it was exhausting. And I was nervous the whole time. But we did a good job and the community did a good job. And I was proud of us. And I think you have to celebrate. You know, because this work is hard and you have to celebrate those moments when things go well. So I was happy with it. Thank you. And just to get, Bill, all his staff also had a response to the Ferguson events. How were we involved, represent? Three members of our staff, Claudia and Mika Cole and Sharif Bajoka went to Ferguson to do some research and development work on potential future artistic projects and just to be on the ground. And I was so grateful to those three colleagues for having that impulse and for following through. And the piece that was read of Claudia's came out of that visit. If there's anything you want to add about your time, it'd be great to hear it. Even though it's not time for the audience to add. We can break rules, can't we? Anything you guys want to say? Hi. So we were there for about three days and the last day we were there and this was before we held some kind of large artists gathering to connect. We went to go see a youth theater company. It was a black repertory of St. Louis and it was their youth group and it was a powerful, beautiful piece of theater where the students had been learning for two weeks about black history and of course their work was responding to what was happening in their lives and at the very end of their piece where they took us through slavery and the black arts movement and to contemporary hip hop at the end they all said what their actual dreams were. You know little kids saying I'm gonna be on TV one day and I'm gonna be a scientist and then they said hands up don't shoot and I just sat there thinking this is what theater is about. The moment was provocative and beautiful and healing and it made me proud to work in theater. Can I just very quickly follow up on that? The reason why we chose to read your piece was in response to a question I put toward the panel about what happened in Illinois I think it was the Edwardsville School District in which the superintendent asked teachers not to talk about what happened in Ferguson to ban conversations in classrooms and if students talked about it to change the subject and so the question I put to the panel was what are the developmentally appropriate ways we can talk about this and what they did at St. Louis Black Rep was so beautiful because it provided us with an alternative model and I think it also really demonstrated the importance of African American arts institutions as containers for these conversations around in particular racism and the African American experience so it was such a gift that you wrote that and the audience just loved it so thank you Claudia for that. So David you have a long and distinguished record as an artist, activist working to expand representations of personal cultural identity in the theater probably most famously in the controversy around the casting of Miss Saigon and Broadway in the 1990s and of course many other movements since how has your advocacy work shaped your evolution as a playwright and the way in which you work with the theater to produce your work? Well I mean I want to go back to Sarah what you were talking about in terms of authenticity and the creation of work because you know when I first started wanting to be a playwright I wasn't interested in most of the topics that I've ended up writing about I just wanted to be you know I didn't have any particular awareness or consciousness of myself I mean I knew I was Chinese-American but I didn't think it was particularly important and then the summer before my senior year in college I was home I'm from LA I was home and I saw an ad in the LA Times it said study playwriting with Sam Shepard and I was a big fan of Shepard and so I clipped this ad and sent it in and it was the first year of something that for many subsequent years was a pretty prominent event in Southern California at the Padua Hills Playwrights Festival but this was only the first year that they ever tried to do it so there were only two of us that applied to be students so we both got in and so at Padua I got to study with Sam and Maria Irene Fornes and Murray Medic and Walter Hadler and a lot of people wonderful writers who taught us more to write from our subconscious to write from places that we don't understand and when I started doing that all these issues started appearing on the page things like class of cultures and immigration and assimilation so clearly some part of me was incredibly interested in these subjects but my conscious mind hadn't figured that out yet and ever since then writing has been for me a way to hold the mirror up to myself internally and find out how I really feel about things in terms of a sort of a personal adjunct to this question of what's the relationship between arts and the society I think it represents the reciprocal relationship between the work and the artist I discovered that I was interested in these subjects through the work and then my interest has then shaped the entire rest of my life so that in a literal sense the artist creates the work but it is equally true that the work recreates the artist and I feel like that's the reciprocal relationship so now as it relates to activism I mean yeah you were talking about the whole controversy over the quote unquote yellow face casting of Jonathan Price in the Saigon came to Broadway in 1990 but in some sense I need to contextualize that as ten years prior to that in the late 70s there was an incident where getting back to Joseph Papp where the public theater did a play called New Jerusalem by Len Jenkins in I think about 78 and they cast a Caucasian actor in an Asian role which led to protests by the Asian actors of that day that that was yellow face casting and Joe Bing who he was he had the protestors come into the theater, into his office and eventually hired one of them onto his staff with a brief defined roles for Asian actors and it was just about that time that my first play FOB came across their desk so I'm basically the beneficiary of affirmative action I mean that's what affirmative action is there was a slot that was created for someone like me and I was the guy who got to walk through it and so if you know coming from that place it therefore becomes I think incumbent upon me or necessary to then when a similar incident pops up ten years down the road and by that point I'd done him butterfly and you know I had visibility that's what you got to use it for I mean that's why I was put there so I've tried to be a good steward of the trust that was placed in me absolutely in the year since since having that feeling of using your visibility using your standing in the theater how do you find that your views have evolved since then do you feel that we are making progress that sense of affirmative action in a way that we program voices of color I feel like I've gone through a lot of different phases thinking on these issues which is I think appropriate I mean hopefully I'm not the same person I was when I was 20 otherwise what was the point of the last 30 years really so yeah I think that there was a certain point in my life when I was much more sort of what I call an isolationist I just wanted to work with other agents and stuff and then I moved on from that and I went into what then became multiculturalism and then I started to feel that multiculturalism was sort of a little silo-ish and so then I became more interested in what's called trans-culturalism now so there's all these different terms and ways of thinking but as it relates to this question of have we made progress I think it really depends what time frame you measure that progress over I mean yeah if I compare to 1980 when my first play was produced I think we've made quite a bit of progress in terms of major theaters in this country at least recognizing the desire to have more diversity, more inclusion so that people can exactly figure out how to make that happen and that's where I think the actual progress that has been made has been slower than even a lot of institutions I think would like it to be but the reality is let's just look at the issue of casting I mean it's hard to come up with statistics but there is a group in New York APAC which crunched the numbers for Broadway theaters and I think it's the 10 or 12 major not-for-profit theaters in New York and for over a period of like 6 years so they broke down the casting by ethnicity and roughly it varies from year to year but roughly you have about 80% of the roles in theater being cast with Caucasian actors so I think that we would have to say that in any field a good diversity statistic and I think that the field as a whole would go yeah, you're right that's not a good statistic but people again don't seem to have figured out yet how to improve that number as leaders of institutions how do you feel that that artistic leaders can help to address these issues in programming recognizing that of course all of our theaters in its size have different missions in what guides their work do you have insights, advice for your fellow arts leaders? thank you well, I mean I think so the question is complex because every arts organization should have I think a diversity and inclusion and equity plan and that includes theaters of color so for example where we were challenged we're challenged in terms of accessibility issues, we're challenged in terms of we still have male and female bathrooms in our facilities we so we decided this season we're a mid-sized arts organization we have a huge budget we decided that we would dedicate all of our plays this season to women's voices and so that is one thing that we could do as an African American theater company I think another thing that we can do is collaborate with other theater companies and my father has built some really healthy relationships with regional theaters across the country and finding partnerships like the work that you and Lou are doing here and I just I think that one of the challenges though with collaborations especially between theaters of color and other theater companies is understanding that even though our budget size may be smaller we're coming with a lot to offer and a lot to put on the table when we go back to that idea of authenticity our communities value and trust us and that is a huge thing that we're bringing to a conversation about partnership our cultural capital needs to be recognized those are things that I don't really think that you can put a a dollar figure around but it's important that that's named at the table because I think a lot of times there's this excitement for smaller theater companies to be partnering with a larger theater company and they don't articulate their value and so we're doing a lot of conversation in the Twin Cities now around equitable collaborative projects and partnerships and it's hard you know I mean it's not a one size fits all thing there's no cookie cutter formula every relationship has to be organically built and it has to be done over a period of years you can't just do it a one off and then expect that you know you're going to hit the right mark the first time so I guess that would be a starting place I don't know that was great thank you you know for us as a large scale classical theater company there's just the overwhelming history of gender inequity and you know the dominance of white writers and starting with our namesake playwright you know who is obviously a white man and so trying to create a season because it absolutely starts with the work what are the stories we're choosing to tell who wrote those stories and what artists are required to best interpret those stories on stage back stage and who then wants to come to experience those stories it all starts with what the stories are so that's part of why we've looked at expanding the definition of the classical repertoire that it's not just Shakespeare, Molière Chekhov et cetera and so many of the great European writers and great American writers of past eras although we love those authors and we'll continue to produce those authors we've also looked at Sanskrit epic at Nigerian play Japanese and Chinese stories that are old and classical and that feels essential and we've talked more and more and more about gender inequity and you know this season is the first time that four of our seven non Shakespeare plays are written wholly or in part by women and you know I'm parsing that so carefully because I have to because Shakespeare is our middle name and we love the works of William Shakespeare and everything that Shakespeare's work stands for in terms of its energy and its vibrancy and the way in which Shakespeare explored incredible diversity of society and the politics and the spirituality of the plays that goes on and on so Shakespeare is our standard and our inspiration in so many ways but in terms of the authenticity of voice in terms of diverse cultural perspectives it's hard work for us as a classical theater and exciting now obviously with the new work there are of the many many many writers we've commissioned we want to always be thoughtful about the gender diversity and racial and ethnic and every type of diversity of our larger society and how that's reflected in the playwrights we're choosing to invite in to create something with us and we're always so happy when they say yes Can I just quickly follow up on that? From an institutional perspective I also sit on the board of directors for the theater communications group and I am the diversity inclusion chair of that board and I have to say that the rigor and the tenacity and the commitment to the hard work you're doing is such a beacon and is so important for our field because you're saying that Oregon Shakespeare festival can do it and that is so important right? because I look at our regional theater the Guthrie is having a lot of difficulty and they're presented with very serious challenges that they're grappling with and to have a flagship theater to say well if they can do it we can do it right and so it's so important that that's being modeled and it's such an important place to hold in our field and in the country and we're very grateful for the work that you're doing so keep it up Fantastic Sarah I'm going to piggyback on you just bringing up theater communications group which is our flagship umbrella organization representing a multitude of theaters in the United States and there's been a surge of action in recent years within major national arts institutions organizations to talk about to advance having greater diversity and inclusion in the American theater so from where you sit as a community activist as a scholar I think for so many of us a luminary of guiding light in this work why is the movement happening now are we witnessing a larger national moment Yeah I think that's a great question I would like to say that it's just a growing moral imperative and that theaters are finding their way and they're seeing that this is their role in responsibility as institutions that serve the public good and need to be equitable in that way but I do think that there are other factors involved certainly I think that folks were galvanized after the 2010 census when they saw just a huge upsurge in the diversity of our nation it was tracking much faster than they thought it would from the 2000 census and I can certainly tell you in community organizing and activist communities and a lot of the non-profit organizations that have to provide services to this diverse population they were tracking these things way before certainly the politicians were and certainly before some of the cultural institutions so for a lot of those folks when they saw the 2010 census it was like yeah, this is our nation and so we're now tracking by 2042 and listen, I will tell you it's going to happen before 2042 but the projections are that by 2042 the United States will be majority people of color and right now I happen to live in a city that is predominantly people of color within a state that is predominantly people of color and I can just tell you this is just the reality and I don't think that it's a threat but I do think that that is part of it is that folks are recognizing that these changing demographics mean that we have to really speak to our community our communities are changing and I also think that another piece that's happening is within the theater community and I don't know why it's not happening as much in some of the other artistic places it's happening there but it's just happening with such energy in the theater community I do think it's a combination of two things I think that there are these culturally specific theaters who've been holding it down for a long time I mean Penumbra is one of those theaters as well as east west players in Los Angeles our colleague and friend Tim Dang who's been doing this work the oldest Asian Pacific American theater in the nation native voices doing work on behalf and for only new playwrights coming out of the Native American Alaskan native and our tribal experiences only new playwrights I mean this is the work that they've been doing Theatral Campasino so we have culturally specific theaters that have been doing this work and holding us accountable to communities of color thank goodness when some of the larger predominantly white theater institutions have not been able to keep those keep those relationships going so I think that that's happened and I feel like those relationships and that commitment to having theater have a relationship with communities of color has been serving us well and I feel that they've been sort of keeping this stew ready for us and now some of the larger theaters like OSF and others are saying listen we've got to recognize that our communities are changing these demographics are shifting and we have to be accountable I keep going back to I love the sort of the show I love the show I love the shout out that Sarah made about OSF because in my work when I'm talking to other theaters around the nation theaters that might be in larger communities metropolitan communities maybe they're in New York, maybe they're in LA and they say oh it's so hard we can't, how can we I mean it's just such a challenge to get this university and we can't and I say you know let me tell you about this little place called Oregon Shakespeare Festival you've got Shakespeare in your name here we're in Ashland which is a beautiful city but folks it's you know the demographics here and you know Bill Rauch's vision and yes all of what came before at the foundation and Cynthia's vision and leadership there's like we are taking there is no excuse how do you decide when you're in Ashland Oregon leading with Shakespeare that you want to match the demographics of the nation who does that and then proceed to do it so I feel like Sarah's right when she says that you know OSF is a beacon folks and I know that the folks that work here at OSF you don't still yet get your national reputation because you're here but I am telling you that there is not a conversation that happens about this issue that the point of reference does not come back to OSF so you may not want to keep holding it down but folks are looking at you and I also want to say that there's a relationship with the OSF audience as well that folks are saying I hear folks say hey well you know that OSF audience is they expect no less they expect it so I could go on and on on this because I feel like there is something palpable it is a little different there is some momentum and it's a confluence of those institutions those culturally specific institutions that we've got to support them they've been doing it with little resources creating and supporting and sustaining playwrights of color that have not had the same kind of opportunities in some of the larger white institutions they've been holding it down all these years and now these white theater are playing catch up and luckily OSF is one of them that's taking a lead on that so I think that that's happening and quite frankly look at changing folks what is your audience if you have not asked yourself that question if you have not looked I think that that has helped the conversation I just want to add something because the whole demographic change is huge and I feel like there may have been a time when one could go oh well we're supposed to become more diverse because it's the right thing to do either politically, socially, aesthetically at this point it's also a business imperative I mean there's no industry in America that doesn't realize that it needs to become more diverse and serve a diverse audience in order to survive and certainly that applies to theater as much if not more so than anybody else and even I think Hollywood is a huge ship that is incredibly difficult to turn and they generally don't do a very good job of it you see this season ABC actually is really making an effort to try to become a diverse network and we'll see if the shows run or not that ultimately is going to be a huge arbitrar in Hollywood as to whether or not other people decide to kind of ape that effort but anyway it's a business imperative if I can just join in here too I completely agree with the business imperative I agree with it the reality of shifting demographics and the need to be responsible to our communities the ethical, the moral imperative but the other thing not but and diversity makes the work better it just always always does and when Howie Seago who's been a member of our acting company now for years brings his language, American Sign Language, onto our stages the work is richer for it and we can go on naming example after example after example but new perspectives different cultural perspectives new languages being introduced into the work makes the work richer it makes the work more reflective of the world we live in and that makes the work more compelling and more worth watching for me as an audience member and as an artist I think it also makes it more relevant to kind of bring this conversation full circle it is such a powerful thing to see yourself and your community represented I mean that is such an affirming life giving experience and so for kids of color to be able to turn on the television and see families that look like theirs to read literature that represents their experience that's powerful and it can help people stand up in the potential of who they are the flip side to that is the realization that it does do that and there are communities in the United States that are trying to combat that right now for example the Texas School Board in Arizona there were conversations about taking ethnic literature out of English classes why because they know that students read about themselves in positive ways they'll feel compelled to participate in society as adults and they may change how things are going Huno Diaz an incredible fiction writer talked about the creation of what he called cultural vampires if you can't see yourself reflected you become sort of a monster to yourself in these ways that are insidious that start to permeate families which start to permeate culture and so it's important that we recognize that when you allow space for someone to recognize themselves on stage that it is a life giving and affirming thing that you're doing and so we do need to support writers of color we do need to support people who never get the chance in so many different ways the trans community right all of this conversation that we're having there's been some beautiful pieces through the TCG blogs about ability and thinking about representing different kinds of ability on stage and so I think I think what we're trying to do is really wonderful one thing that does frustrate me inside all of these conversations is the sense that like when's it going to be my turn when does my community get the microphone and it's what about all of us how can we all and that's where I think Carmen has been and I love your calling her a light because she absolutely is in the field Carmen is doing beautiful work with theater communications group that is permeating the theater the American theater landscape that is not an understatement and she's so rigorous with all of us to say okay you're doing great on that what about these folks you know celebrate but you can't forget about you know and it's so important that we have that kind of leadership and that reminder because the work's never going to be done that's the thing it's a life path it's not a like okay I took my culture pill I'm done exactly I love that so recognizing I mean first of all the epic scale of the work that we are tackling that the life long reality changing work really that we are talking about doing here and the moral imperative the financial imperative just the reality that the world is changing I want to recognize that we're not just talking to ourselves here we are in fact sharing a room we're under the same lights with our audience so I would like to ask all of you actually what is the audience's role in helping to shape diverse inclusive theaters you know how can you ask our audience for example you know support a movement towards greater inclusivity greater diversity and more importantly how can our audiences hold us accountable as artists anybody want to start us off wow I'm going to throw some stuff out there I hope you don't get upset because just a quick quick story you know I had the pleasure of having a wonderful conversation with a man who lives in the Bay Area lives in San Francisco and he was talking about with some emotion what a wonderful experience he had in the most diverse the most diverse audience experience he had ever had in his life he was watching an August Wilson play for the first time in his life and seeing a fabric of American culture that he had never been exposed to before with the most diverse audience that he had ever been exposed to before now you know he lives in San Francisco and he said you know where I was having that experience I was having it at OSF in Ashton Oregon and he said to me that I will pay for I will give my money to make that kind of an experience for me so I feel like it's important to talk about it in that way that this is not just about well you know let's have artistic representation because it's it allows all of us to see each other in a more human way John Powell if you all get a chance look up the research that John Powell is doing he's a professor right now I believe it's Stanford or Berkeley and he is talking about for a long time we have thought that some of us see others and we don't see their humaneness we've thought that now we have science to back it up where they have trucked the way in which what part of the brain lights up when you see certain racial and ethnic groups and I have to say I'm sad to say that some of the results are shocking and not very optimistic so what we know now is scientifically that some of us look at other communities look at other races and don't see human beings there they're not human what the connection I'm making is what this man talked about when he saw his very first August Wilson play and saw the humanness expressed on stage and the fact that we know that some of us don't see all communities as fully human and the potential there and so what the audience can do is what the OSF audience does is expect that come to expect that when I come into a community or an environment an organization and audience and it's all white I think to myself that's not a coincidence what's underlying that let's let's interrogate it let's expect that we're going to have a reflection of the real people that live in these communities so I think one of the things is hold these organizations accountable they are here for the public good these are resources that should benefit as many of us as possible put your money there support culturally specific institutions that have been doing this work for so long even if you don't live in those communities go on PNUMBRA's website take out a membership for PNUMBRA East West players Theatro Campesino many organizations culturally specific there to support them please don't let them languish and then by all means hold those predominantly white now institutions they're predominantly white now but that's going to change I mean we already know about the demographics but hold them accountable because in the meantime we still need to hold them accountable tell them you expect no less please there's a couple things that I think I want to talk about I'm going to name them so I don't forget the second one the first one is about theaters of color and diversity the second one is about audiences being critical consumers of art can you all help me remember that I want to come back to thank you so I had a question from a reporter in the Twin Cities the Guthrie Theater can you all know about the Guthrie Theater big theater awesome theater really cool space like a big blue box you get vertigo in there but anyway I had a reporter ask me if the Guthrie successfully diversifies their work will we still need PNUMBRA Theater and it hurt my heart for a lot of reasons the first being PNUMBRA doesn't exist to diversify the Guthrie right PNUMBRA Theater exists because we need a space where African-American art and culture is represented and it's not going to end once a white organization diversifies it's going to continue we're going to still live and still make art okay the other is the sense that everything has to be surrounding the largest organization in the area and I think one of the things that I've seen you take leadership on is these partnerships and saying you know and that was the Guthrie was doing that in the Twin Cities for a while saying for example if we're going to do an August Wilson play we got to talk to PNUMBRA you know they were the first theater company to give him his first professional production they've done more of his work than any other theater company in the world we got to talk to him and so we partnered was it hard yes was it messy yes but recognizing that there are experts in your area is really important so culturally specific theaters theaters of color are valuable in and of their own right and knowing that as audience members is really important and we need your support when I go to the second point about critical consumers of art that's something that we try to foster at PNUMBRA I would say our audiences are really educated they're passionate about the work and that's something that you can do actively as audience members is become critical consumers of art and there's something a really special role that you can play that I would ask you to take up if you feel comfortable doing when communities who are underrepresented on stages tell you that they're upset about the representation of their people or cultures believe them yes they know when they say that depiction of my culture and people is wrong and injurious listen to what they have to say and talk to the artistic directors talk to other audience members figure out what they're upset about because believe me the representation of people and cultures matters it influences what we come to believe about individuals and communities it influences our core values and that determines our willingness to allow access to people and that's a really simple thing that you can do is be willing to listen when there's protest it's not over nothing so those are my two suggestions for audiences I want to build on your talking about cultural specific organizations and the value that they bring I think artistic expression like time is something that's precious and that can be spent wisely or poorly in a world in five minutes and you can waste a lifetime depending on how you choose to spend your time and I think in the same way the biggest budget arts organization in the country can be doing nothing to move the dial on our society and a small budgeted vibrant cultural specific organization can be the one that's changing the world this idea that bigger is better and the bigger the budget is the more validity an organization has there are traps that come with size also I just want to go back Harman your story about that gentleman in the August Wilson plays very moving and I'm so happy he had that experience at the same time the majority of the racial and ethnic diversity of audiences live in our student audiences and many many OSF audience members expressed to me their concern about the future of our audience and the racial and ethnic diversity future in the audience the socioeconomic diversity the age diversity of our audience we've got a very we've got a very robust student audience we've got a robust older audience and the young adult audience is not the largest part of our audience and many audience members express to me concern about all those issues so I think we have a ton of work to do and I do think it's our shared responsibility when I talk to groups of supporters I say it's up to every one of us who did you invite to come with you to a play and how are we shifting and creating access for the widest possible diversity of future audience members and I do think it's shared responsibility I also want to say one final thing which is about traps that I fall into often in terms of making assumptions about people and there's also extraordinary hidden diversity in the world and in or not immediately visible diversity and so I just want to name that because it's a real and a powerful thing and sometimes we make judgments about sweeping groups of people and actually there's extraordinary diversity of experience and identity that people are bringing that we may not even take the time to notice absolutely I just want to add one thing about culturally specific institutions and if the mainstream institutions diversified does that mean that culturally specific institutions that aren't needed anymore I mean I think that if you take it out of the context in which we're discussing it and you look at I always like to look at avant-garde theaters theaters that are doing avant-garde work if some of those aesthetics then influence the mainstream does that mean that avant-garde theater no longer needs to exist I mean in that case I think everyone would go no of course because you know it's somehow easier for us to understand than it is when we put it in a culturally specific context that the same principles apply that there's work that gets done in avant-garde or culturally specific institutions that can only get done within those institutions and it's important whether or not those principles then end up boomeranging into the mainstream and you know I want to do just one quick quick follow up because I hear this all the time and it's always with the very best of intentions and it's always in the midst of a conversation a vigorous conversation about these issues of equity and how we really have the most inclusive environment and what I hear all the time is look these people don't like theater they don't want to come you know I mean we can only do so much it's not you know they don't like theater they are the people who don't and I want to say to you all because this is a you know that's not true and I know you just trust me on this because I've done qualitative and quantitative research and I can tell you that that's not true what I can tell you about people who have been historically defined as the other and that's whether or not it is race or gender or what I can tell you about them is they know when and where they are wanted we almost develop a sixth sense for that like we can tell you oh this is a good point don't go over here so when you set the table for them and they know this is a insert name of historically marginalized group friendly place they will show up they do show up we know that to be true so I want to say for those of you who are some of you might be in this room right now saying no no no it's they just don't want to come we do want to come they do want to come we will be there create a climate and an environment that says we value you we see you as fully human and then folks don't want to go places where they don't where they're not seen as human beings we just don't we don't like that there's one more practical thing and and any little bit helps I think in this regard which is to know one of my mentors and dear friends is Michael Kaiser who has just ended his term as the president of the Kennedy Center in DC and he's written really wonderful essays on diversity in the arts and he's doing great work to foster healthy conversations around it but one of the things he told me which was quite enlightening is that for for larger we're calling the mainstream organizations sometimes we call them you know more white organizations bigger budget organizations for those organizations almost 60 percent fully 60 percent of their donated income is from individuals for most theaters of color it's about between 6 and 14 percent and so I'm not a finance person I'm an artist person but I do know that if you diversify your portfolio you have less risk less risk right yes so if we're completely reliant upon corporations and foundations for heavy gifts and there's an economic return and they tighten their belts we're in big trouble if we don't have individual donors who can be there to support us recently Penumbra did hit a financial wall and 1400 individuals, corporations and foundations came to our aid one of which was OSF campaigning on behalf of Penumbra saying we can't let this theater company go away which is really important leadership I think but that's one way that if you give to a theater company regularly maybe consider figure out if there's a theater company of color in your community or a theater company that specifically works on LGBTQ issues or gender parity or access and ability and see if you agree with their mission and you value the efforts that they're doing give them a little bit of money and encourage other people by just maybe sharing their mission statement or their core value statement because that's important too so dollars can help beautiful get involved so I think we're going to shift gears really quickly here and open it up to all of you and I see cards being offered fantastic goodness the audience is leaving it's time for you now and we've lost exactly so we have any questions there that we just offered are they going to be read aloud can people ask them themselves sure and if anyone wants to step to the microphone they should as well oh first off would you panelists say your names again so Lydia Garcia Carmen Morgan David Henry Huang Sarah Bellamy Bill Rauch that was an easy one we knew the answer to that first question is to Bill would you talk about how you are opening Shakespeare specifically to new audiences and thank you for this event well again Shakespeare is our middle name and we are committed to sharing the whole body of work in robust productions that are as different from one another as possible hopefully the only thing they share is uniform excellence in different ways and there are a lot of ways to do that I think that the stereotype is that older people want Elizabethan productions that are set in that era and younger people want fresh modern interpretations and of course that's not completely true at all it's much more complex what I have said I think everybody wants good productions that are well-acted and well-directed and muscually spoken and where actors are taking emotional risks that's what everybody wants and something that I've said in the past is if somebody has a predilection about the period the production is set in like I only like it when the dresses touch the floor and they're wearing those beautiful costumes or I only like it when it's completely relevant to me and it's in modern dress I want us to do the period productions that engage the people who only want to see the stories in modern settings and I want us to do modern productions where the people who think they prefer period productions are engaged in other words I want the work to be so good that whatever people's aesthetic biases are when they walk in they leave them at the door because they go on the ride and that's what's going to engage people of all ages to experience the Shakespeare so I'm saying that that was a polite smattering of applause I'm just saying that's the response I'd prefer to get to our Shakespeare productions since that's second not the first one so I'm seeing a lot of comments and I would again like to invite you all to New Place and the Culture Fest lounge to unpack this very, very packed topic right after the panel but I'll move to one of those comments that says more inclusivity the problem resides in the room look around at the color and mix of this group of OSF supporters here in Ashland too often if one sees a person of color it is more likely a company member rather than a theater goer when I suffered discrimination as a teenager and the discrimination went underground when it was no longer socially acceptable I wondered how to deal with that talk about it go silent and be grateful for the silence what to a quick question which is not going to be quick at all I know because it is very dynamic ticket prices seem to get more expensive every year it's expensive to get here and stay here for a week income inequality is a huge issue for the nation and affordability strikes me as one of the largest barriers to diverse audiences how do you balance financial health and viability versus the affordability that would assist accessibility and diversity in audiences that's a great one I feel like I need to I will start on that and any of my colleagues who want to chime in please do it's a huge issue and it's one we talk about a lot because the fact is part of why we're able to produce such extraordinary work and hire some of the best artists and artisans and administrators in the country is because we have an audience that is willing to pay a lot of money to see our shows so economic access is a huge issue for us there are I think a lot of it is how we communicate the good things that we already do there are extraordinary access programs for locals in southern Oregon whether it's flex passes whether it's the 1935 program whether it's family days whether it's student tickets even specially priced groups for student groups from certain school systems throughout the state so there's a lot of access there also are C price seats which are between $25 and $30 are available for every performance of every show all year long every single production so there are points of access that exist that I think sometimes people don't know about economic access also food something I find no one knows is that if you have an Oregon trail card or a food card if you call the box office and ask whether the performance is rushing any performance that has rush tickets available with your food card or whatever it's called in your state you can get $5 tickets 15 minutes before the show and you can get two $5 tickets per food card an hour before the performance thank you thank you for that the other thing I want to say quickly is it's true this is an expensive community to live in and it's an expensive community to visit and so a lot of our focus when we think about diversity is how can we invite more people with the economic means to come as tourists as visitors from far away who will increase our diversity so tourists of color and other people who got the means to stay in Ashland meanwhile how can we be a better resource and more accessible to low income people in our own backyard because there's extraordinary poverty in southern Oregon and there are really shocking statistics about the amount of poverty in our state and in our part of the state and how can we be more responsible and create more access for people of limited economic means in our own backyard so I think again we could go on for 2-3 hours on this topic it's an additional one it's a vitally important one and I'm grateful for whoever wrote that on the card to name it I just also say that your leadership on diversity and inclusion in the field could be a campaign for affluent patrons who love Oregon Shakespeare Festival to say we want help us help us bring other people here and donate money specifically to do that I think to Carmen's point just how visible the work is that I would support that I'd put some money in that I'm not affluent though so just be a little bit of me one thing that I live in New York and obviously the question of the cost of theater and the degree to which it exacerbates the income divide in our country is a huge one one example that I was really happy to be associated with was I was the residency one playwright for a playwright called Signature for a theater called Signature Theater in New York that devotes a season to the work of a single author and they raised Jim Houghton the artistic director and founder specifically to subsidize tickets and so as a result every seat of every performance in that theater in the initial announced run is $25 and so I was very proud to be at a theater that was able to have affordable tickets and I think that there are ways to there are institutions and foundations and even in their case a venture capitalist who gave them $10 million to subsidize tickets for 20 years was it anyway 20 million or something and 10 million 10 million so anyway it is a big issue and something that needs to be addressed along with the racial and ethnic diversity issues and income diversity you know and I would just add to that just very quickly which is that in addition to everything that's already been said because I do think it's a complicated multi-pronged approach but you know I I guess and I hope I'm not overly simplifying this but I do know that I mean those Beyonce and Jay-Z tickets are expensive and I think that community folks prioritize what speaks to them and what is next with them and what you know what I mean so I feel like I don't mean to be disrespectful and oversimplify this but folks will put their money where they you know find value and feel speaks to them so just put that out there so I think we might have time for maybe one more question then maybe this will take one wow probably shouldn't say that should theater try to draw in such groups as Tea Party Republicans and to what purpose absolutely I'll just quickly just say my piece on that is absolutely absolutely and I think that theater does I think so because of what I said earlier which was that I want to see can we share our humanity with each other can you see me as human I want to see you as human I feel that the power of theater to bridge that divide absolutely absolutely and I believe that that is already happening I don't think that theater is seen as so so liberal that I leave this to the experts here I think people love theater from every political position in ideology as long as they've they've been welcomed and usually because someone said come with me as a child or a young adult they were introduced to theater and they saw the magic of it I mean that's why we all love theater because even if you know we're all the pullies and things are you still go whoa and that's really cool and I think one of the things that we tend to lament a bit at Penumbra is we're often preaching to the choir we're often having these really important conversations with people who already agree and so ideally we're giving them skills and tools to go out and share but it would be great if people could come in and be part of that those conversations and see those plays and because I think that would push us to understand what we're doing better you know I think if you get an echo chamber you're not going to grow so I would welcome it when our American revolutions plays when I have audience members self-identify as being an opposite extremes of the political spectrum and talk about how engaged how moved, how challenged they were by a piece then I feel like we are doing what we're here to do yeah great question I think we're at the time but I have at least seven great questions that I think would be a great starter for the culture first to impact at new place right after this I hope to see people come out and continue this conversation at least for the next hour absolutely thank you thank you we cannot thank you enough for joining us today we're having this conversation we want this conversation to come out from behind closed doors and to include all of you because we do this work together there's three elements the artist, the work of art and the audience to receive it so without you, we're just playing for ourselves and that's no fun so for our audience both physical and virtual thank you HowlRound thank you for joining us this morning we could not do this work without your passionate, dedicated, vociferous participation in what we do and we also invite you to this conversation so as Rob said some of us will be going to the Culture Fest lounge right now we'd love to mingle here your questions but there will also be a free facilitated conversation with Carmen and Carmen will be there for you I won't be on the stage no, you won't be on the stage you will not be on the stage that conversation called who's theater is this is happening on Sunday September 14th at 4.30pm in the Culture Fest lounge not on the stage and it is meant to be a conversation so by all means join us then we will continue talking we would love to hear what is bubbling up for you what questions you have what perspectives you have it only enriches our work well done Lydia Lydia Garcia thank you thank you everybody hey have a wonderful day alright